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Wastelandic
Wastelandic '( ''Kii-Zul, "Ash-Voice"), sometimes called the '''Rock Tongue, or the Speech of Ash and Fire 'is the ancient, rune-based language spoken in Westeros by the Bordermen. The Wastelandic tongue was gradually supplanted by the language and alphabet of the Andals when they successfully entered the Borderlands. Now, the Common Tongue is the dominant language in the wastelands. Wastelandic was originally a dialect of the Old Tongue. In the present day, however, Wastelandic is still used by some Bordermen in the far reaches of the Borderlands. The raiders, for example, still speak Wastelandic. Dialects The lands of the Borderlands are quite rugged, with little in terms of long-distance trade or travel, and this geographic isolation resulted in the bordermen diverging into six major subgroups, each of which speaks its own sub-dialect of the Rock Tongue. Trevyr Blackgard once remarked that the bordermen spoke seven "languages" (apparently six dialects of the Old Tongue, Wastelandic, plus those who can speak the Common Tongue of the Andals). Writing system Wastelandic has a more complicated rune-based system than its predecessor, the Old Tongue. The Wastelandic runes are written in a more flowing and diverse design. While the First Men used their writing simply for marking graves, the bordermen already developed some form of writing, but never used it for writing letters, for example. Something that really impressed the maesters of the Citadel, was that the bordermen already used an alphabet, long before the Andals set foot on Westeros to introduce the Common Tongue, which also has a complicated alphabetical system. House-Blackgard-Main-Shield.PNG|The sigil of House Blackgard contains examples of the runes of the Rock Tongue. Trevyr-burial plaque.png|The burial plaque of Trevyr Blackgard, in Wastelandic runes. Pronunciation Some may find the pronunciation of the Wastelandic alphabet digraphs "aa", "ah", "ei", "ey", "ii", "ir", "uu", "ur", and "oo" to be confusing. The language itself has a slightly Scandinavian sound when pronouncing certain words. "Aa" and "ah" are both a long, open "a" /aː/; the latter, however, being formed more gutturally (sometimes becoming /ɔː/). "Oo" is used in the instances where the normal "o" sound /o/ (English "p'o'rt") needs to become long (/oː/), as in the English "d'oo'r". Only "uu" takes on the sound of an English double-"o" (see the above examples). "ii" would tend to be longer (/ɪː/). "Ir" and "ur" equate to /ir/ and /ur/, respectively. Finally, there is a difference between "ei" and "ey": "ei" is pronounced as in German, producing a vowel as in pr'i'ce. "Ey," on the other hand, sounds as in f'a'''ce. Grammar The language has basically the same grammar as English, with the exceptions that it doesn't have an equivalent to English's apostrophes; it tends to place prepositional phrases earlier in sentences than in English, and doesn't have tense. To pluralize a word, the final letter is repeated and "e" is added (i.e. "grohiik": wolf; "grohiikke": wolves) Words are constructed in such a way that, when combined, they form new words. A known construction is "Junnesejer", which means "the kings of the east". "Jun" being king and "Jer" being east. Thus, combining words will allow one to convey an idea or another word. For Example: "moon and eclipse" are not present in the vocabulary, but sun ("krein") and night ("vulon") are. The word is based on which of the words is the first because the first word is prominent. If one were to say "vulonkrein", the prominent word would be "night" while the secondary is "sun", and there would be "moon" (i.e. a light in the night). Vice versa with "kreinvulon", as "sun" is prominent and "night" is secondary, so there would be "eclipse" (darkness where the sun is). With Junnesejer, it means "the kings of the east", but if one were to put it as Jersejun, it would be "East King". "Se" is a conjunction between words that are combined to fill in the particles, but it's just as easily-understood without it. Common words Alphabet The bordermen were the first culture to possess a sophisticated and developed '''Wastelandic Alphabet, based on the Wastelandic tongue. Similar to the Old Tongue of the First Men, the alphabet was runic and was used primarily for marking graves and such. The alphabet consists of 34 symbols: there are 25 that map directly to letters in the English alphabet, and 9 that map to pairs of letters. The Wastelandic language does not have "C" as that sound is created by either "S" or "K". The shape of the letters is constrained by their need to be written using three large talons and a vestigial fourth digit called the dewclaw. Thus, each letter consists of at most three scratches and a dot. Category:Languages Category:LordOfTheNeverThere Category:Culture & Society Category:Bordermen Speakers of Wastelandic * Trevyr Blackgard * Eddin Blackgard * Lorgan Storm * Dyron Blackgard (possibly) * Brant Tymber * Aeron Blackgard Category:LordOfTheNeverThere Category:Languages Category:Bordermen